In the past, most transactions for the purchase of goods and/or services were performed face-to-face, and such transactions typically were performed in a store, as opposed to at the customer's location. For example, in a typical transaction, a customer would go to a merchant's place of business (sometimes referred to as the “point of sale”), pay for the goods/services, and then either pick them up or have them delivered, as appropriate. Often, a presentation instrument, such as a personal or business check, is used as the means of payment in such transactions. In recent years, merchants have begun to utilize the services of financial transaction processors, who, inter alia, can provide check acceptance services. In a typical implementation of such a service, when the merchant receives a personal check (or other presentation instrument), the merchant obtains authorization from the transaction processor to accept the check prior to providing the goods/services to the user. The transaction processor typically will evaluate the check against a list of known fraudulent check writers, accounts used to write fraudulent checks, and/or the like. In this way, the transaction processor can provide some assurance (and, in some cases, a guarantee) to the merchant that the check will “clear” (i.e., that the customer's financial institution will honor the check).
In the modern economy, however, an ever-increasing number of transactions are performed at locations other than in the merchant's place of business and, in many cases, without face-to-face interaction (indeed, a typical transaction might take place between a merchant and a customer on different continents). Such transactions include, inter alia, telephone orders, Internet orders, and the like. Typically, such transactions will feature a payment by credit card, since it is relatively easy to provide credit card details over the phone or electronically. Many customers, however, either cannot obtain a credit card or uncomfortable with their use, for a variety of reasons (including interest charges, reluctance to borrow money, privacy and/or security concerns, and the like). For such customers, purchasing items without a face-to-face transaction can be difficult.
One solution to this problem is the traditional “cash on delivery” technique, where the user takes delivery of goods and/or services, and then provides cash to the deliverer of the goods/services. This technique, however, requires the customer to have sufficient cash on hand at the time of delivery, and it raises additional security concerns for the customer, who has to take on faith the deliverer's assurances that the cash will be returned to the merchant. As a result, many “cash on delivery” transactions actually involve the customer providing a personal or business check to the delivery person.
This “check on delivery” type of transaction, however, raises issues as well. In particular, simply by the nature of the transaction, a merchant who accepts a check on delivery typically cannot obtain the assurances of a transaction provider that the check will clear prior to delivering the goods, since the goods are delivered before the merchant obtains the check.
Hence, there is a need for more robust tools for facilitating the acceptance of checks and other presentation instruments. It would be of particular benefit for such tools to allow a merchant some assurance that a check will clear, even if the check is received by the merchant after the goods/services already have been delivered. It would provide additional benefit, in many cases, if the merchant were able to have the presentation instrument settled without having to deposit the instrument at the merchant's bank.